This cannot be said enough... Until the Wii, Nintendo has always released its consoles for $200 at launch, and even the Wii could be argued as being $200 if you removed Wii Sports from the package. The difference was that Nintendo's competitors generally aimed for the same price range as Nintendo, which limited how powerful said systems could be. People think that consoles had always pushed out cutting edge graphics, when they really didn't. We have actual proof of such in the 16-bit era. The SNES and the Genesis could not have been pushing graphics compared to everything else since the Neo Geo's selling point was that it had Arcade Level graphics, which it did because the hardware in SNK's Console was the exact same as the hardware in SNK's Arcade Cabinets. The Neo Geo was $400 hardware in the 16-Bit era, while the Genesis and SNES were $200 hardware in that same era. The Neo Geo AES also had an extended lifespan like the PS3 & 360 have and had quite a hardcore following. Essentially, Nintendo wants SNESes, while Sony, Microsoft, and Third-Parties want Neo Geos.
I never thought of it that way! :O :O :O
However, it's arguable that skipping the Wiimote (NOT a good idea in retrospect) and the GamePad (probably would've been a good idea in retrospect haha) would've lowered the price and maybe left room for better hardware, who knows.
The Wii was a nice bump from GC no doubt, I mean Brawl was really nice at 60fps and Monster Hunter Tri was incredible looking.
Funny thing is, Nintendo's taking a hit in money for each Wii U sold but made decent profit from each Wii sold at the time IIRC, so that's one thing to consider.
Also Wii U IS pushing some modern techniques, one of which is TRUE Depth of Field, Pikmin 3 is one game that heavily uses it.
Shin'en's been tweeting interesting graphical techniques that their using for the next Wii U games, I don't know which are able to be done on PS360 or not, but it shows that they're ever beefing up their engine on Wii U after Nano Assault NEO.
Let's not forget the comments about DX11-like techniques used by some indies, wonder if Shin'en can elaborate.
Wii U may be the little console that could yet, and still at a lower price than the competition with the GamePad.
So even today Yamauchi's idea is still there, yeah Wii U is not $200 pushing PS4 graphics (no way that could've been done without risking bankruptcy), but still.
Now if Nintendo can just bring the games and work out the marketing to get across that Wii U is a new system and that the GamePad is not a Wii accessory.
